FAIRHOPE, Ala. -- For 26 years, Bob Young’s cooking skills have taken him to hotel and restaurant kitchens throughout the United States.

Now the self-taught talent is having the time of his life working as executive chef at The Hangout in Gulf Shores, a fun, family-friendly place where patrons often dance to live music.

"It is wonderful," he said. "I just love it. Sometimes, I get here early enough to see the sunrise and leave late enough to see the sunset. The people are wonderful to work with and the customers are happy that they are on the beach."

The Fairhope man since February has been working at The Hangout, where he manages 45 kitchen staff members and feeds 2,500-plus guests daily at the height of tourist season.

"It is a challenging new field of culinary for me based on the volume of business we do, but it is very exciting," Young said. Young said he is looking forward to the restaurant’s third annual oyster cook-off in November and to The Hangout’s first music festival, a three-day event set for May 14 through 16. "We will have 10 acres of live music with 60-plus bands," he said.

Young, 44, has been cooking in restaurants since he was 17. But his love of all things culinary dates back to his childhood. He fondly remembers helping his grandfather, James Hedrick, create family meals.

"He was handicapped with one leg shorter than the other and he would sit on a stool and peel potatoes," Young said of his grandfather who died in the late 1990s. "He was an inspiration to me."

Beginning at age 17, Young worked in Maryland for restaurants and the Teamsters Union driving a truck for bread companies. He moved to Fairhope in 1991, looking for a change of scenery, warmer weather and a cook’s job that would provide a living.

"I moved down here on a whim," he said.

In 1993, Young met his wife, Beverly, a Fairhope native, and they married two years later. After moving to Fairhope, Young worked at the Holiday Inn in Gulf Shores before landing work at Marriott’s Grand Hotel in Point Clear, where he served as kitchen and restaurant supervisor, pastry supervisor and as chef at Lakewood Golf Club.

He then worked two years each as a chef in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Reston, Va.

After his second child was born, Young returned to the Teamsters Union for four years to allow more time at home.

That’s when Young and his wife set up a "two-year plan" to return to Beverly’s hometown. Two weeks later, Bob Young was delighted to get a job offer from the Grand Hotel. "They called and wanted me in two weeks," he said. "A month after we made our two-year plan, we were there in a month," he said.